Tetz Rooke
Stockholm University
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They also knew each other well personally. The Syrian Kurd 'Ali, who was born as early as in 1876, had for many years lived and worked in Egypt during the time of the Ottoman Empire as so many other intellectuals from Greater Syria did. As a journalist and editor he wholeheartedly engaged himself in the Egyptian political and cultural debate and made many influential friends. These ties to 'The Mother of the World', umm al-dunya, he kept alive after having returned to his native town Damascus. He continued to publish many of his historical and literary studies in Cairo and subsequently also became a member of its Language Academy. [4] The ten years younger Ahmad Amin was an academy member, too, and in addition knew Kurd 'Ali from their work together in a national committee for translation and publishing headed by himself. [5]
But despite their close connections as professionals and similar liberal views regarding many political and social issues of their time, Amin did not appreciate Kurd 'Ali's Memoirs at all. Instead he dismissed the work as a great disappointment. [6] In fact his review in al-Thaqafa is a vehement attack on the author, who is accused of being impolite, narrow-minded, childish, suspicious, unfair and a bad stylist besides.
Ahmad Amin's foremost piece of evidence is the accusations wedged by Kurd 'Ali in his Memoirs against a number of Egyptian cultural figures - including the reviewer himself - for being ungrateful and uninterested in the works of the Syrian intelligentsia in general and the literary projects of the author in particular. Kurd 'Ali complains about certain Egyptian literati not having participated in the work of the Arab Academy of Damascus after having been elected members there. He is also annoyed over their reluctance, as he sees it, to buy his books and review them in their magazines, which he interprets as a sign of Egyptian snobbery. [7]
Amin refutes this critique as naive. Kurd 'Ali behaves as a child who loves the one who smiles and offers it sweets but hates the one who frowns and does not give it anything. Referring to his personal acquaintance with the Syrian scholar, Amin claims that this lack of taste and acumen is typical for Kurd 'Ali's character. His manners, his adab, are bad. But never mind, Amin concludes, good taste you cannot learn from books, hereby implying that Kurd 'Ali's erudition has by no means managed to make him a gentleman. [8]
The thrust of this criticism is interesting. It focuses on the adab of the author, his social conduct and ethical behaviour, and is based on an evaluation of the person rather than the text. True enough Ahmad Amin also questions the image Kurd 'Ali projects of himself in his recollections by comparing it with the historical facts. The image is that of a freedom fighter, a self-sacrificing, unflinching and dedicated Arab nationalist, a champion of social reform and renewal, and a person with firm principles and moral integrity. This self-image, according to Amin, does not go very well with the fact that Kurd 'Ali gladly cooperated with the French during the mandate and even served many years as a minister in their Syrian puppet regimes. Therefore he shares responsibility for the catastrophic cut-up of Syria into four mini-states that was implemented at that time. To top it off Amin also claims that he is lying about events, sometimes making them up in fact, with disturbing consequences for his trustworthiness as a scholar and for the reliability of his historical writings. Yet, Amin's main reason for disapproving of the Memoirs is their uninhibited subjectivity and openness about the author's personal grudges, which he interprets as proof of bad judgment and bad manners.
How come Amin reacted this way to the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali and choose to concentrate on the character of the author in his review? One reason was perhaps because the Memoirs in themselves are quite obsessed with ethics. They systematically develop a discourse on moral virtues. Social reform and development, islah, which is the main concern of the author, is presented as essentially an ethical problem, a matter of personal conduct, courage, dutifulness, honesty, generosity and commitment to the common good. 'Who behaved as a true Arab (Muslim) gentleman, and who did not?' This is a key question to Muhammad Kurd 'Ali when he tries to evaluate the past in his Memoirs. His assumption is that the deplorable Arab backwardness and dependence of the nineteenth and early twentieth century are an effect of the Arabs having degenerated morally and intellectually, no longer possessing the virtues of the Arabs of the Golden Age, the time before the Ottoman period. This is why he writes so openly about other peoples' shortcomings and feels free to throw dirt as it were. Ethics is the key to social and cultural progress, such is his premise.
Ahmad Amin adapts to this discourse and accepts the premise by using to the same kind of arguments, but claiming that it is not the accused but the accuser who is guilty of a lack of adab. He pays him back in his own coin so to speak. This is perhaps not surprising since Amin's interest for ethics, akhlaq, was always great. For many years he was a lecturer in ethics in the training school for judges in Cairo (Madrasat al-Qada') and he also composed a school-book on the subject under the title Kitab al-akhlaq. [9]
Seen in this context the literary quarrel between the two men about who is a gentleman and who is not ceases to be just a matter of personal antagonism. Instead the moralising slant of the argumentation raises the question of a possible influence from the classical adab-literature and its socio-ethical ideals on the Muslim intellectuals of the Nahda. In this paper I will try to examine in what ways the mediaeval adab-literature played a role as source of inspiration for one major Arab intellectual during 'the liberal age', as Albert Hourani has called it, Muhammad Kurd 'Ali. [10] Arguably adab-literature both inspired him with philosophical ideas about human nature and society and provided literary ideals impinging on both the form and content of his writings.
Much has been said about the impact of the 'West' on most aspects of Arab thought and creativity during the Arab 'renaissance' or Nahda, and rightly so. This influence was truly seminal. Much has also been said about the return to the Islamic sources that guided the religious wing of this movement. [11] However, comparatively lesser attention has been paid to the influence of the secular literary heritage on the thinking of the leading intellectuals about society and their own role in it. The symbolic value of the Arabic language and literature for the early Arab nationalists has of course been stressed a lot. And the role of history writing in the creation of a national consciousness is also well recognised. But in what ways this interest in Arab secular culture and history also entailed actual emulation and take-over of intellectual goods and literary patterns is not very well studied. And this is the theme that I would like to explore here by relating the classical concept of adab to the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali.
Since Muhammad Kurd 'Ali was perhaps the leading personality of the Nahda in Syria, his thinking and literary practice can not be regarded as marginal and odd but should rather be seen as emblematic and typical. [12] As an Arab intellectual in the beginning of the century he is a representative of an important type, the 'Muslim secularist', as defined by Hisham Sharabi. [13] Therefore, the reflexes of adab that I hope to uncover in his Memoirs demonstrate that the classical literary heritage was not just a symbol of national pride to the secular cultural elite of the time, but a living resource full of social and literary ideas possible to emulate. However, as we shall see, the tradition was used in a selective and creative way and often to underpin the need for change.
One scholar that previously has pointed to the importance of the adab tradition for the philosophical outlook of the Muslim reformers is Joseph Escovitz. In an article dealing with Sheikh Tahir al-Jaza'iri (1851- 1920) and his influence Escovitz describes how the sheikh acquired many of his ideas and ideals from his readings of adab. [14] Briefly put al-Jaza'iri's reform program emphasised the need for intellectual freedom and ethical conduct as manifested in the adab-literature. Al-Jaza'iri, whom Sharabi has called 'the leading spirit of Islamic reformism in Syria' [15] and Kurd 'Ali in his Memoirs refers to as 'the Muhammad 'Abduh of Syria', [16] was the teacher and close friend of Kurd 'Ali and accordingly introduced this tradition to him.
Adab, thus, is education and upbringing, high moral principles and correct behaviour, scholarship and knowledge, all at once, but is also used to designate literary works of a certain 'kind'. However, this 'kind' is not easy to define and Bonebakker who explores the concept in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature questions the validity of the current definitions used by most literary historians of adab as a literary genre. These definitions are too broad to be analytically useful and bear little relation to what the 'Abbasids themselves might have understood with the term. Bonebakker therefore suggests a more restricted use of the term adab to mean 'the literary scholarship of a cultivated man' presented in a systematic form, and no more. [18]
No better definition can he give of the word because in the mediaeval sources it is used in so many different ways. And when you look at the works actually classified as adab-works at the time they are always miscellanies. Nevertheless, even these miscellanies have some common traits which perhaps make it possible to describe a classical adab-work in prose in general terms: It is encyclopaedic and didactic in its aim, though non-technical in its approach; the adib wants to instruct and amuse at the same time; anecdotes and aphorisms drawn from the fields of political, ethical and religious thought and from many other areas of learning are typical features; there is a stress on the curious and the entertaining and on the literary form of the presentation. [19]
Proceeding from this loose description and adding some concrete examples from mediaeval texts, we can now start to look for influence from the concept of adab in the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali and, by implication, on his thinking and view of himself as a modern intellectual.
There is no clear plan to which the writer works in the presentation of his subject-matter. There is a faint chronological order in as much as the work begins with memories from childhood and mainly presents the early period of the author's life early in the text, but there are many exceptions to this order and many chapters are impossible to place in time at all for the average reader.
The Memoirs are informed with a critical spirit, with the noteworthy exception that self-criticism is rare in the author. Provocative and drastic judgments on the other hand he loves. The work is aimed to be both informative and entertaining at the same time, so he tries to be witty when he can. The style is literary rather than scientific, or 'hot' rather than 'cold' in his own terminology. [20] His stylistic ideals are the 'classical' masters of Arabic prose, writers like Ibn al-Muqaffa', al-Jahiz and al-Tawhidi. [21]
To illustrate this description of the work I will give a few examples from the major types of writing represented in the Memoirs. These examples, I hope, will also give an impression of the character of the author and some of his views, especially in the field of ethics, and demonstrate his links with classical adab.
Journalism and publishing was Kurd 'Ali's door of entrance into the higher circles of society and into political life. It made him a name, but this activity was also sensitive and dangerous. Because of the social critique and Arab nationalist sentiment expressed in his paper, he was opposed both by many influential citizens of Damascus and the Turkish governors, who suspected him of being unloyal to the state. Hence, he was several times threatened to be thrown in jail and even to be killed. To avoid danger he twice had to escape illegally from his home town. The one time he dodged the authorities by pretending to be a Protestant and the other he fled with a caravan of camels disguised as an Arabian trader. The narrative of these adventures in the Memoirs is short but exciting. [24] One interesting feature is to note how Kurd 'Ali experiences geographical Syria as one country, Bilad al-Sham, with different regions like Palestine and Lebanon and Syria. The only border he had to pass on his way with the caravan from outside Damascus to the Nile valley was the Turkish-Egyptian frontier at Rafah; there, but only there, there was a border post. The subsequent division of the area into several smaller territorial units that came to form the basis for the independent nation states of today, Kurd 'Ali was always against.
Ethics, conduct and honoured customs frequently figure as a theme in the plain historical narrative, too, but it is rarely in focus. For example, telling about how it was to live with the Bedouins in the caravan, our writer finds occasion to extol their genuine Arab virtues (including the 'classical flavour' of their speech): 'During fourteen days and nights there was no obscenity, no lies, no censure, and no profanity', he recalls. [25] But this is just a remark in passing.
One large group of portraits are of leaders that the author came in contact with during his career. In the chapter 'Ummi sahib akhlaq' (An Illiterate Man of Character) we find a portrait of the 'good' Ottoman governor represented by Hasan Pasha, who is characterised as having had a good heart, clean conscience, peaceful character and the foresight to protect the Arab intellectuals of his district. [27] In the same category of clean people at the top there are portraits of Amir Faysal and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Gregorious Haddad just to name two. [28] The religious tolerance of the latter and his generosity towards all those in need regardless of their creed gave him the nick-name 'the Patriarch of the Muslims, Muhammad Gregorious' among the Muslim community in Syria, Kurd 'Ali reports. In this Christian leader he sees an ideal representative of patriotism and Arabism and ends his praise for him with a wish: 'Would that many Muslim sheikhs were made of the same stuff and possessed a similar character'. [29]
On the other side of the spectrum, there are the portraits of the corrupt and evil. In the chapter 'Akhlaq wazir' (The Character of a Minister) Kurd 'Ali attacks the Syrian Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey for having enriched himself through his office, used the support of the rabble (al-ra'a') to keep him there and for having conspired against the author in order to have him dismissed from his post as president of the Arabic Academy. [30]
This kind of open critique of the powerful bordering on insults is rare in modern Arabic literature (and journalism) and explains why the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali were regarded as a highly controversial work when they were published and perhaps still are. Some readers were enthusiastic about the work. Others like Ahmad Amin considered it a shame. Thus, the Memoirs were never reprinted and are difficult to find today except in photocopied shape. But the author himself saw a point in being provocative; it is the duty of the intellectual to speak out about the evils of society and expose those responsible, even if it displeases some people, he says in the introduction to his text:
Perhaps, some of those I mention will be pained over certain things that upset them, but I do not make much of their anger. It has not been my purpose to please them. Rather, I have deliberately dishonoured them sometimes, because they dishonour this nation by their actions and do not care about it. [...] To speak out about the truth and resist the evil are the first steps of advancement (nuhud). 'The one who hides the truth is a devil in disguise', al-sakit 'an al-haqq shaytan 'akhras. ' [31]In the thinking of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali this idea of open criticism and debate as a prerequisite of social progress is accompanied by the belief in the Arab citizen's right to freedom of speech. In a chapter with precisely this title 'Hurriyat al-kalam' (Freedom of Speech) he argues that no official, be it the prime minister himself, has the right to interfere with this right. However, Kurd 'Ali does not connect the argument to any 'Western' philosophy or political ideology as one might have expected, but relates an anecdote about al-Jahiz (d. 869), the Arab adab writer par excellence: Once upon a time al-Jahiz wrote to a vizier, who had been angered by a poem and thereafter forbidden people to mention him in their verse, telling him that he made a serious mistake. Instead of becoming angry he should regard critical writings as an opportunity to improve his personality (islah al-nafs). People had a right to say what they wanted. [32]
Here, the mediaeval secular authority of al-Jahiz is used to legitimise a principle that Kurd 'Ali believes should be applied in modern society and demonstrates at work in his Memoirs, namely freedom of speech. [33] Whether he derived this principle directly from the adab literature or first imported it from 'Western' philosophy is another question. Both sources gave impulses to his thinking: 'My interest was to spread the new and revive the old thinking, adopting the literary style of both the old and modern scholars', he summarises his literary intentions in his Memoirs. [34]
Muhammad Kurd 'Ali edited several manuscripts by these two mediaeval writers and was well acquainted with their ideas. [37] Especially Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi has interested many modern Muslim intellectuals because of his intellectual nonconformism, promotion of humanist ideals and outstanding honesty in his portrait of himself in his writings. [38] Philip Hitti refers to him as one of the arch-heretics of Islam in fact. [39] This epithet of al-Tawhidi is too strong to be applied to Kurd 'Ali, but intellectual honesty, nonconformism and humanism are certainly principles he tries to apply in his Memoirs. It is a fair guess that part of the text's critical courage and tendency towards the controversial can be attributed to the influence of writers like al-Tawhidi perceived by the author as ideal Arab intellectuals of the past.
We find at least one place in the Memoirs were al-Tawhidi is directly quoted. The quotation occurs in a chapter of the essay type. In this case the topic is how to mix with 'ordinary people'. [40] Here Kurd 'Ali relates some incidents where he has been 'pestered' by lower officials and ordinary people who have tried to exploit him in different ways, fawning on him and begging for favours. In this connection he expresses an elitist view of society simplistically conceptualised as consisting of two classes, al-'amma (the common people) and al-khassa (the elite), and quotes an advice of al-Tawhidi: 'To resist the common people is proper; to seek a position among them is base; to resemble them is a defect'. [41] This leads up to the moral that the intellectual should keep a distance from the masses (al-sawwad al-a'zam) and not pay attention to what people think or say about his work. The intellectual must be independent and ready to forget both praise and blame as quickly as possible. Besides al-Tawhidi, another authority for this moral is Sheikh Tahir al-Jaza'iri, who is said to have lived and worked after such rules. Once again Kurd 'Ali argues for intellectual freedom with reference to the tradition, but from an elitist point of view.
In another essayistic chapter Kurd 'Ali develops his view of the classes in society further. Here he quotes a description by the Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi (1364-1442), who divided the people into seven different groups: 1) the people of the state, 2) the rich merchants, 3) the smaller businessmen, 4) the landowners and peasants, 5) the poor (including most of the Muslim clergy), 6) the artisans and professionals, and 7) the needy and the miserable. According to Kurd 'Ali this mediaeval description is still accurate; society has not changed that much. Later he goes on to state that so far nobody has managed to analyse the 'soul' of the social classes (ruh al-tabaqat) and their fixed nature better than al-Jahiz.Kurd 'Ali ends his essay with the words: 'Subhan man tabbaq al-tabaqat wa-raf'a al-darajat' (Praise the one who established the classes and raised the ranks). In other words, class society is God given and not to be changed. [42]
The apparent contradiction between, on the one hand, an often expressed will to political reform in liberal direction believed to lead to improved social conditions for the majority and, on the other, a disdain for the common people, is not unique to the Muslim secular intellectual of the Nahda, however. The Christian Jurji Zaydan had for instance similar elitist ideas about the social classes and their relationship, perhaps also inspired by the mediaeval philosophical tradition. [43]
This conservatism had its parallel in a view of women as inferior to men in intellectual, scientific and political matters. Regarding gender relations Kurd 'Ali certainly was bone-conservative, a patriarch of the old school. Thus, his family life is conspicuously absent from the Memoirs and his wife is a non-person in the text. We do find scattered chapters on women's issues, but they are there mostly to refute the demands of women to equality with men in society. [44] An exception to this is in the field of education, where girls and boys should have equal opportunities. In this connection it should be noted that also misogyny is a characteristic trait of mediaeval adab. [45]
There are many other types of essays than those on the proper relations between the classes and genders in society in the Memoirs. The topics range from everything from education to hotels, Arabic dialects to dreams, administration to poetry, the Young Turks to antiquities, Egyptian jokes to Western Orientalists. [46] You find informative chapters containing statistics over the number of schools and pupils in Syria-Lebanon and rhetorical ones calling for the unification of Syria-Lebanon into one nation state. [47] Humour, philosophy, politics, history and culture, everything is there.
This type of literary 'cocktail' in some ways resembles the modern newspaper or journal with its variety of topics and aims and customary short length of the articles. In fact, according to the Iraqi critic 'Abd al-Sattar both the journalistic style (al-uslub al-suhufi) and the form of the newspaper article (al-maqala al-suhufiya) have greatly influenced the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali and made them deviate from the norms of the memoir genre. [48] But influence from journalism is not the only reason for the discrepancies between al-Mudhakkirat and the expectations and associations generated by a modern title like this in Arabic literature. [49] As a complement to this explanation I suggest a link between the Memoirs and the classical adab work in the mixed form itself. The 'cocktail' is nothing short of a 'miscellany' and what looks like an essayistic 'article' could also be named an 'epistle'. Likewise concerning Kurd 'Ali's style other readers have pointed to its dependence of 'classical' models and judged it a synthesis of both old and new influences. [50]
An important category of essays deals with the decay of Islam and its causes. [51] A major cause is the moral corruption of the ulema as the author sees it. He gives us many personal examples of this from his early years. Numerous stories about the hypocrisy, falsehood, egoism, power hunger, ignorance and wickedness of the traditionalistic sheiks of Damascus get to illustrate his point. The sheiks did not shun any means to oppose the young Kurd 'Ali and the reformers of his day, we learn.
The intellectual climate of Syria at the turn of the century in Kurd 'Ali's description reminds one of the small town of Jante in Sandemose's novel (En flykting krysser sitt spor, 1933) and the 'law' of its jealous inhabitants against individual initiatives and experiments. Against the background of this personal experience of small town mentality in Islamic garb the author concludes that to restore the glory of Islam in the world you have to restore the moral character of the religious leadership first. Violence is no alternative. Radical organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood in their own way pervert the ideas of 'true Islam', according to Kurd 'Ali. [52]
To illustrate the concept of 'good manners and conduct' (al-akhlaq al-tayyiba), in a chapter with this title, Kurd 'Ali tells a string of anecdotes about one of his father's friends, the Damascene notable 'Abd al-Ganni al-Quwatli, legendary for his generosity and exemplary moral. [53] Initially we are told how 'Abd al-Ghanni every once in a while used to invite four to five hundred poor people to eat in his palace and then give them presents. After that there follows a typical quasi-historical anecdote: One day 'Abd al-Ghanni happened to notice that one of his camel drivers tried to steal two loads of firewood from the caravan that he had just brought to Damascus from the countryside. When 'Abd al-Ghanni followed the thief he saw him unload the firewood in front of a house that at closer inspection proved to be completely empty of all necessities. When he discovered this he took the man by his hand and went shopping: He bought the camel-driver two sacks of flower, a can of clarified butter, a can of olive oil, a can of black honey, a sack of rice, a sack of coffee beans plus everything else you need to eat. Then he said to the man: 'Now you need firewood, but what were you going to do with it before?'
The next anecdote in the string is about how 'Abd al-Ghanni gave one of his neighbours, a merchant in dire straits, a sack of money in order to save him from having to sell his house; a good neighbour was more worth than all the money in the world, according to the wisdom of 'Abd al-Ghanni. Then his generosity is further exemplified with some anecdotes from the pilgrimage, al-hajj, informing us how he happily gave away his clothes to the poor and generously invited strangers to share his food. Lastly, the proper conduct of this 'ideal man' is illustrated by a story of how he broke with his own brother, because the latter wanted to turn a Muslim graveyard in one of his villages into a villa garden, something which of course was immoral.
Commenting on these anecdotes our author explains that 'Abd al-Ghanni al-Quwatli was a true representative of Islam. [54] His generosity and noble conduct demonstrated what the character of the Muslims (akhlaq al-muslimin) used to be like in the past, at a time when they acted in accordance with the demands of Islam (shurut al-islam) and before they had fallen into 'the pit of ugly materialism', when they were Muslims not only according to identity cards, civil registers and geography books. [55]
In the Memoirs the anecdote as narrative strategy is also used to illustrate the opposite ethical position, the present moral decay (fasad) of the Muslims. As a contrast to chapters on good manners and conduct we find chapters about bad manners and conduct. A typical chapter in this category is 'Akhlaq ba'd al-qudah' (The Character of Some Judges). [56] Also this chapter is largely composed of quasi-historical anecdotes. One is about the Ottoman Sultan Yilderim Beyazid, who at one point during his reign sentenced all the judges of his realm to death because their 'lack of religion'. Another is about a judge in a suburb of Damascus who spent the property of the religious institutions he was in charge of as his own. The sense moral is harsh: 'From my own experience I know that most of the judges to this day do not fear God. They are thieves in white turbans. Their food, drink, clothes and housing come from the money of the orphans and the widows.' [57]
One may well ask where the personal element associated with the memoir genre comes in in all of this story-telling. As a matter of fact it is often absent. In chapters as those just described the reader totally looses the sense of reading a life-story. The text turns into a book of entertaining anecdotes with educative purpose in the style of classical adab. The author-narrator's textual presence is reduced to a commenting function. Perhaps he initiates the anecdote by telling it as something he once heard or as a story of somebody he once knew. The personal element is stronger in the anecdotes with a more firm historical basis taken as they often are from the author's own experience or emanating from his immediate environment. [58] But even then the anecdotes are not primarily told for the official records to clear up some moot point in contemporary history. Rather the author wishes to convey his wisdom concerning the right principles of government and the proper conduct of leaders, both the spiritual and the worldly ones. The device is traditional and so is the aim. Like the mediaeval adib, Muhammad Kurd 'Ali wants to instruct and amuse at the same time, thus in his Memoirs the curious and the entertaining have an important literary function.
Yet, throughout this huge work Kurd 'Ali shows a fondness for the brief and poignant expression that reminds one of the aphorism. This is a stylistic trait which is also typical of the classical adab work. The Arabic word for aphorism is hikma (pl. hikam), which also means wisdom, and to convey wisdom we said is a primary aim of the anecdote in the Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising to find that many 'proto-anecdotes' have condensed and transformed into hikams, aphoristic or gnomic utterances instead. Especially in the forth and last volume of the Memoirs there are several chapters devoted to terse opinions and aphorisms of this sort. [60] They number several hundreds and their scope is the scope of the Memoirs as a whole, 'encyclopaedic' but with an emphasis on social affairs and politics. Here are a few random examples:
- 'The one who saves an hour of his time every day and spends it on something useful will after a few years end up surpassing his fellows. Your time is your life, so do not waste it on thing that are not useful to you.'
- 'I used to think that the only things left to the Arabs to be proud of were their loyalty and generosity. Of lately I have been convinced that both these virtues have become so rare that they now are like the new moon before it has been confirmed (hilal al-shakk), almost invisible.'
- 'The English won the two World Wars more because of their endurance than because of their weapons.'
- 'Nations (shu'ub) who act are better than nations who talk, and practical knowledge is better than theoretical knowledge.'
- 'Optimism! Not Pessimism! Pessimism just makes you upset without benefit.'
- 'After this alarming moral decay, do not expect good from most people! You, yourself are the source of your own happiness and misery.'
- 'If those who condemn History considered the Qur'an, they would understand that the stories of the past it contains are precisely History, combined with philosophic explanation and commentary.'
- 'Nothing can stop decay (fasad) from spreading in most matters when the common people take over power. The commonalty (al-'awwam) is for the most part only good at destroying things. The elite (al-khwass) may spend many years organising something, but as soon as it is left in the hands of the common people they will ruin it less than an hour.' [61]
This is the philosophising of an old man feeling an urge to summarise his life experience before it is too late. He appears somewhat bitter, somewhat arrogant and a bit self-conceited. But the literary practice of presenting massive quantities of advice in aphoristic form has an old tradition i Arabic belles-lettres, which is important to realise when you judge the text. Muhammad Kurd 'Ali had earlier in his career edited a collection of aphorisms by Ibn al-Muqaffa' to whom the aphorism was always dear and whose style in general is heavily dependent on the aphoristic. [62] In al-Mudhakkirat Kurd 'Ali tried his own hands at the dead masters trade. [63]
Partly you get the impression that the creative power of the author at this late stage of his Memoir-project has dwindled and he no longer finds the force which allows him to contextualise his argument or develop his thoughts in a longer narrative form. He goes directly to the point instead. However, also in the earlier volumes of the work the rhetorical device of the aphorism has a prominent place, but integrated in the running text. Kurd 'Ali is very often writing in a sententious vein. In the chapter ''Ulama' al-Mashriqiyat wa-al-Islam' (The Orientalists and Islam), there are some good examples of this: 'No one in this world can guarantee another's success.' (...) 'A wise man forges his own way to success, and relies only on his own industry.' But also and a bit contradictory perhaps: 'No man has ever been able to achieve anything worthwhile without cooperation from others.' [64] The rationalistic and individualistic philosophy of these aphoristic sentences corresponds exactly with the spirit of the independent maxims found in the later part of the work.
Despite all this there is no doubt that the Mudhakkirat of Kurd 'Ali essentially is a modern text created to fit the modern generic system. In fact, if we return to were we began, to the reception of the work, we find that many Arab readers considered it not just a modern text, but a very modern one, when it first was published. [65] In one review for example it was compared with al-Ayyam by Taha Husayn, Yawmiyat na'ib fi al-aryaf by Tawfiq al-Hakim and Si le grain ne meurt by André Gide and considered as original as these innovative autobiographical works. [66]
Thus, what we have is not a case of simple copying. What Kurd 'Ali has done in al-Mudhakkirat is to anchor his own composition in the Arab literary heritage trying to use the power of the tradition to reach the reader with a 'new' message and induce change in society. Hereby he furnishes us with yet another example of how the literary tradition is manipulated and transformed by contemporary Arab writers in their literature and used as a source of creative inspiration. This is well recognised in the field of poetry where the work of Adonis for instance is the most radical illustration to the phenomenon, but also in the field of fiction with a novel like al-Zayni Barakat (1974) by the Egyptian Jamal al-Ghaytani. [67] Although less studied the same literary 'recycling' is also operative in the field of Arabic non-fiction prose. The conventions of classical elegiac poetry, al-ritha', has been fruitfully utilised by Arab women writers of autobiography, for example. [68] And here we have a man who manipulates the adab tradition to create another type of literary self-portrait.
But why does he choose this particular tradition and not any other? Is it a sign of the innate conservative nature of the 'Muslim mind' that continues to think in the same tracks generation after generation? Rather the opposite. First of all there is no unbroken line between mediaeval adab and twentieth century Arabic literature. Many of the adab texts were either forgotten or neglected during many centuries. The Arab Renaissance meant the rediscovery of this literary heritage much the same way as the European Renaissance centuries earlier meant a rediscovery of classical Greek and Roman literature. When these texts were admired, emulated and vied with, it was an expression of a new spirit connected to a slowly emerging nationalism. The return to 'classical' ideals was not a conservative movement, but a protest against a previous long period of stagnation. It represented the 'new' as against the 'old', 'progress' as against 'decline'. [69] In the Arab case, too, at one point in time, highlighting the adab tradition in a similar way signified a new departure intellectually.
In a global context the promotion of classical writers as al-Jahiz and al-Tawhidi as intellectual idols may also be explained as a response to the 'Western' liberal political discourse that tried to monopolise the free and independent intellectual as a type characteristic of European culture. To a modern secular Arab thinker like Muhammad Kurd 'Ali the adab tradition offered a cure from cultural alienation by providing 'Oriental' arguments for an open society.
A third reason for its usefulness was that it was aristocratic rather than egalitarian; as interpreted by Kurd 'Ali adab literature did not call for economic equality or abolishing of social privileges. This was convenient for a self-made man like himself and relieved him of the task of having to device more radical solutions than moral reform and improved education to the glaring social injustices of his time.
An additional circumstance that must have played a part in the composition of the Memoirs was the fact that the author already had written a more linear life-story based on his Bildungsgang. This text Kurd 'Ali patterned on the classical Arabic biographical tradition (tarjama/sira) and published as an appendix to his great historical work Khitat al-Sham. [70]
The Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali is an uneven work both as literature and historical document. Some chapters are extremely interesting, others are superficial and naive. The author is apologetic and vain rather than modest and self-critical in his attitude to himself, which can be tiring to the reader. Nevertheless, the work must be considered a rich mine of behind-the-scene information about people and events during the author's life-time in Turkey, Greater Syria and Egypt and a good map over the thinking of the urban, upper-class, male segment of society to which Muhammad Kurd 'Ali belonged. An index to names and topics would greatly improve its usefulness and the creation of such an index could be an interesting research topic for future scholars.
It is not I but Ahmad Amin who is fabricating lies and falsifying history, Kurd 'Ali claims. Amin does not understand politics! Besides he likes to glorify himself in his writing, which is a sign of his dishonest character.Most of all Kurd 'Ali is upset at Amin accusing him for complicity in the division of Syria into small 'statelets' during the time of the Mandate:
Even if I was a minister then, a minister was no more than an administrator without influence on policy making under the French. Besides I protested against this division and the separation of Lebanon from Syria on many occasions, Kurd 'Ali defends himself. 'He [Ahmad Amin] said that he is not happy about my style of writing or way of research. I for my part am quite happy about his style of writing and way of research, but I am not happy about some sides of his character.' [72]The parallels between these two contemporary Arab intellectuals, Muhammad Kurd 'Ali and Ahmad Amin, are strikingly many. Not only did they make similar careers, but they also shared many political ideas, like the belief in modern education, national independence and Islamic renewal. Moreover, they engaged in similar scientific and literary projects at about the same time. In the late 1920s Kurd 'Ali published a six volume cultural and political history of Greater Syria, Bilad al-Sham, which was the first effort at writing a 'national' history for the 'Syrian nation' along modern scientific lines. [73] Immediately afterwards Ahmad Amin published the first volume of a monumental work on the history of Islam, a text that was considered a new departure in Arabic historiography, too. [74] Editing of old Arabic manuscripts was likewise the concern of both and even the writers they choose to concentrate on were sometimes the same, like Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi for example. [75] And when Muhammad Kurd 'Ali made public his Mudhakkirat Ahmad Amin soon followed suite with his contribution in the life-story genre, the autobiography Hayati (My Life), which is written in a completely different style however. [76]
From all these parallels you get the suspicion that the two men not only where dear colleagues, but also fierce rivals, as ambitious individuals but also as representatives of their respective 'brother countries', Syria and Egypt. Indeed, such a rivalry could be one explanation to why Ahmad Amin was so negative as he was to Kurd 'Ali's Memoirs. In fact, Kurd 'Ali develops much energy at discussing inter Arab relations in his memoirs and he is often quite critical of Egyptian attitudes in particular. The Lebanese, the Nejdis and the Syrians, too, get their fare share of criticism, but the Egyptians come under fire more often than others. To investigate this theme of Syrian-Egyptian rivalry and inter-Arab dissent and compare it with the rhetoric of Pan-Arabism that dominate the discourse, suggests itself as a fertile subject for further studies of al-Mudhakkirat, a work which in a curious way seems to have been excluded from the Arabic literary canon. It is totally neglected in all major studies on Arabic autobiographical writing, dominated as they are by the Egyptian perspective. The Egyptian nationalist bias is perhaps one reason for its exclusion. Another is the obsolete nature of some of the political and social ideas of the author one would suspect. And a third reason is perhaps the fact that some of the people who are attacked in the Memoirs, or their relatives, have not not forgiven Kurd 'Ali for his slander yet. [77] However, it is the present author's opinion that the work deserves a better fate than total oblivion, for both its literary qualities and historical.
2. al-Mudhakkirat, Damascus, Vols I and II 1948, Vol. III 1949, Vol. IV 1951. Translated in parts (selected from Vols I-III) by Khalil Totah, Memoirs of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali: A Selection, Washington, 1954. [*]
3. Muhammad Kurd 'Ali was Minister of Public Education in Syria for more than five years during the French mandate. He was founding member of the Arab Academy in Damascus and its president until his death in 1953. Ahmad Amin was a prominent lecturer then a professor at the Egyptian University. In 1945 he was appointed Director of Cultural Administration in the Ministry of Education and for a time also held the same post in the Arab League. For a detailed biography of Kurd 'Ali, see Reiner Hermann, Kulturkrise und konservative Erneuerung: Muhammad Kurd 'Ali (1876-1953) und das geistige leben in Damaskus zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, Farnkfurt am Main 1990. On Ahmad Amin, see A. M. H. Mazyad, Ahmad Amin (Cairo 1886-1954). Advocate of Social and Literary Reform in Egypt, Leiden 1963, and I.J. Boullata, 'Introduction' in: Ahmad Amin, My Life, Leiden 1978, pp. vii-xiv. [*]
4. This scientific institution was modelled on the corresponding one in Damascus, where it had first been established in 1919 on Kurd 'Ali's initiative who also became its first president. On the different Arab Academies of Science and Language and their interrelated histories, see EI (2): 'Madjma' 'ilmi'. Many pages of Kurd 'Ali's Memoirs, too, deal with this subject, e.g. Vol. I, pp. 276-86; Vol. II, pp. 495-8, 518-9, 529-30, 620-23. [*]
5. Lajnat al-ta'lif wa-al-tarjama wa-al-nashr, The Committee of Writing, Translation and Publication. See Mazyad op. cit., p. 18; Boullata, op. cit., p. x. [*]
6. Thaqafa, p. 9. [*]
7. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. II, pp. 589-93. [*]
8. Thaqafa, p. 8. [*]
9. Cairo 1920. For a summary of its content, see Mazyad, op. cit., p. 48. [*]
10. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939, London, 1962. [*]
11. Hourani, for example, talks about the two main sources to Arab thought during the Nahda as being 1) the liberal secularism of nineteenth-century England and France and 2) the Islamic reformism of the salafi brand (ibid, pp. 343-4). [*]
12. Sami al-Kayyali, al-Adab al-'arabi al-mu'asir fi Suriya, Cairo 1968, p. 107; Salma Khadra al-Jayyusi, Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry, Leiden 1977, pp. 205-6. [*]
13. Hisham Sharabi, Arab Intellectuals and the West: The Formative Years, 1875-1914, Baltimore 1970, pp. 8-9, 18-23. [*]
14. Joseph H. Escovitz, ''He was the Muhammad 'Abduh of Syria': A Study of Tahir al-Jaza'iri and his Influence' in: IJMES, vol. 18 (1986), pp. 298-9, 307. [*]
15. Sharabi, op. cit., p. 24. [*]
16. 'Wa-huwa fi hadhihi al-diyar [Bilad al-Sham] ka-al-ustadh al-imam Muhammad 'Abduh fi Misr': al-Mudhakkirat, Vol III, p. 892; Memoirs, p. 201. [*]
17. S. A. Bonebakker, 'Adab and the concept of Belles-lettres' in: 'Abbasid Belles-lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), Cambridge 1990, pp. 16-30. [*]
18. ibid., p. 30. [*]
19. ibid., pp. 27-8. [*]
20. al-kitaba al-harra versus al-kitaba al-barida. For Kurd 'Ali's own view on his literary style see the chapter 'al-Kitaba al-barida' (Cold Writing), Vol. II, pp. 574-76. [*]
21. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. IV, p. 1193. [*]
22. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. I, pp. 216-7, 227-9. [*]
23. ibid. Vol. I, p. 61. [*]
24. ibid. Vol. I, pp. 84-98. [*]
25. ibid. Vol. I, p. 95. The translation is by Totah, op. cit., p. 30. [*]
26. This portrait is titled 'al-adiba al-da'uba' (The Persistent Woman Littérateur). She is Widad al-Sakakini, who is presented as a brilliant evidence of the Levantine woman's talent and potential as compared with her Egyptian sisters (Vol. IV, p. 916). [*]
27. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol I., pp. 36-7. [*]
28. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 130-136, 137-9; Vol. II, p. 598. [*]
29. ibid., Vol. I, p. 139. Totah, op. cit., p. 46. [*]
30. ibid. Vol. IV, pp. 1015-6. [*]
31. Vol. I, p. 4. This and the following translations are by the present author unless otherwise stated. [*]
32. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. IV. pp. 1195-6. The evils of censorship is a topic that figures in other places of the Memoirs, too, for example Vol. I, pp. 52-3 where censorship is characterised as 'a battle between liberty and tyranny'. On the other hand Kurd 'Ali does not seem to have been faithful to his own liberal principles always. He was a person full of contradictions, perhaps without realising it himself. Thus, a little later he relates how he grew tired of journalism and decided to shut down his political daily al-Muqtabas, because the new editor in chief let the wrong people write the wrong things in the paper (Vol. I, pp. 62-3). [*]
33. In another place, too, al-Jahiz is taken as the authority for outspokenness in writing: 'Telling the truth is what immortalised the books of al-Jahiz', Kurd 'Ali says. Vol. II, p. 574. [*]
34. Vol. II, pp. 575-6. [*]
35. Commenting on the criticism directed towards him for his negative image of some 'heroes' of the past in the national mythology, Kurd 'Ali defends himself: 'What can I do? It is the duty of the historian to tell people what really happened. I am not writing a work of fiction (kitab adab wa-'awatif). I am writing history and memoirs.' al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. IV, p. 1313. [*]
36. J. D. Latham, 'Ibn al-Muqaffa' and Early 'Abbasid Prose' in: 'Abbasid Belles-lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), Cambridge 1990, pp. 57-64. [*]
37. Published in Rasa'il al-bulagha', a work which was expanded three times (Cairo 1908, 1913, 1946). Kurd 'Ali also presented the writings of al-Tawhidi in Majallat al-majma' al-'ilmi al-'arabi bi-Dimashq, Vol. 8 (1928), pp. 129-48, 207-55, 269-85. [*]
38. M. Bergé, 'Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi' in: 'Abbasid Belles-Lettres (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature), Cambridge 1990, pp. 112-3, 123. [*]
39. Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, London, Tenth Edition 1970, p. 373. [*]
40. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. I, pp. 209-14. The title of this chapter is 'Ma'a al-'amma' (With the Common People). [*]
41. ibid., Vol. I, p. 211. As usual in the Memoirs the author does not indicate the exact source of his quote, a sign that the text is informed by literary rather than scientific intentions. [*]
42. ibid., Vol. III, 'Tabaqat al-nas' (The Classes of Society), pp. 726-8. [*]
43. Thomas Philipp, Gurgi Zaidan: His life and Thought, Beirut, 1979, pp. 67-8. [*]
44. E.g. Vol. II, 485-6; Vol. III, pp. 704, 754-6. But Kurd 'Ali also expresses some 'liberal' views, like in the chapter 'al-Hijab wa-al-sufur' where he defends unveiling and sees it as a sign of progress (Vol. IV, pp. 1048-9). [*]
45. Cf. Latham, op. cit. 61-2; For a thorough exploration of the image of woman in classical Arabic literature, see Fedwa Malti- Douglas, Woman's Body, Woman's Word: Gender and Discourse in Arabo-Islamic Writing, Princeton, 1991. [*]
46. For a study of Kurd 'Ali's relationship with Orientalists and Orientalism, see J. H. Escovitz, 'Orentalists and Orientalism in the Writings of Muhammad Kurd 'Ali' in IJMES, Vol. 15 (1983), pp. 95-109. [*]
47. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. III, 'al-Jahl fi al-qadim wa-al-hadith' (Ignorance in Ancient and Modern times), pp. 831-4; Vol. IV, 'Nahnu wa-al-qawmiya (We and Our Nationality). [*]
48. Muayyad 'Abd al-Sattar, al-Sira al-dhatiyya: dirasa naqdiya, Uddevalla, 1996, p. 119. [*]
49. For a discussion of the usage of the term mudhakkirat in Arabic literature, see Tetz Rooke, <In My Childhood> A Study of Arabic Autobiography, Stockholm 1997, pp. 65-71. [*]
50. Abu Bakr al-Kadlundi, 'Dirasa naqdiya li-uslub al-ustadh Muhammad Kurd 'Ali' in: Majallat al-Majma' al-lugha al-'arabiya bi-Dimashq, Vol. 61 (1986), pp. 372-3; Shafiq al-Jabiri, Muhadarat 'an Muhammad Kurd 'Ali, Cairo 1957, p. 101. [*]
51. A typical title demonstrating this theme reads 'Inhitat al-Muslimin' (The Deacay of the Muslims) on a chapter dealing with the decay of the Iranian ulema, Vol. II, pp. 558-9. [*]
52. Two chapters in the Memoirs have the Muslim Brotherhood as topic, Vol. II, pp. 531-2, Vol. III, pp. 852-3. [*]
53. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. I, pp. 69-72. [*]
54. 'al-muslim alladhi tamaththal al-islam haqiqatan', ibid., p. 70. Incidentally this 'ideal Muslim' happened to be the grandfather of the not quite as moral third President of the Syrian Republic, Shukri al-Quwatli[ ], whose shortcommings Kurd 'Ali points out several places in his text, e.g. Vol II, p. 612; Vol. IV, p. 1310. [*]
55. ibid., p. 71. [*]
56. ibid., Vol. I, pp. 29-31. [*]
57. ibid., p. 31. [*]
58. For a few typical examples, see the chapter 'Suriya wa-rijaluha' (Syria and its Great Men), Vol. I, pp. 273-6. [*]
59. 'Al-lugha al-'arabiya lughat al-ijaz', Vol. I, p. 44. [*]
60. E.g. 'Mujazat' (Aphorisms), pp. 1020-40; 'Nazarat' (Views), pp. 1167-92; 'Ijtima'iyat' (Social Reflections), pp. 1209-20; 'Mu'limat' (Painful Reflections), pp. 1246-1257; 'Amali' (My Hopes), pp. 1268-91. [*]
61. Vol. IV, pp. 1020, 1021. 1023, 1032, 1034, 1046, 1167, 1182. [*]
62. Published as 'Hikam li-bn al-Muqaffa'' in: Rasa'il al-bulagha', 2 ed., Cairo 1913, pp. 118-20. Concerning Ibn al-Muqaffa''s fondness for aphorisms, see Latham, op. cit., pp. 57, 61, 63. [*]
63. Other good examples of aphorisms attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa' that are extremely similar in style and moral to the ones by Kurd 'Ali in his Memoirs are found in 'al-Adab al-saghir' (The Small Book of Rules of Conduct), also published in Rasa'il al-bulagha', 2 ed., Cairo 1913, pp. 17-54. [*]
64. Vol. I, pp. 199, 198. As translated by Totah, op. cit., pp. 76, 77. [*]
65. See Waddad Sakakini, 'Mudhakkirat khalida' (Immortal Memoirs) in: Majallat al-majma' al-lugha al-'arabiya bi Daimashq, Vol. 24 (1949), pp. 115-8; Muhammad Bahjat al-Athari, 'al-Mudhakkirat' in: Majallat al-majma' al-'ilmi al-Iraqi, Baghdad, Vol. 1 (1950), pp. 349-56. [*]
66. Sakakini, op. cit., pp. 115, 118. [*]
67. On this theme, see Issa J. Boullata, 'Contemporary Arab Writers and the Literary Heritage' in: IJMES, Vol. 15 (1983), pp. 111-19. [*]
68. Rooke, op. cit., pp. 106-8. [*]
69. Bernt Olsson, 'Är renässansen en exklusiv europeisk företeelse?' [Is the renaissance an exclusively European phenomenon?] in: Christina Sjöblad et. al., I lärdomens trädgård. Festskrift till Louise Vinge 24.11.1996, Lund 1996, pp. 42-4, 48. [*]
70. 'Hayat Muhammad Kurd 'Ali mu'allif Khitat al-Sham: tarjama bi-nafsih', Khitat al-Sham, Vol. VI, Damascus 1928, pp. 411-25. [*]
71. al-Mudhakkirat, Vol. IV, 'al-Naqiduna wa-al-naqimuna' (The Critics and the Indignant), pp. 1312-5. [*]
72. ibid., pp.1314-5. [*]
73. Khitat al-Sham, Damascus 1925-28. [*]
74. Fajr al-islam, Cairo 1929; Duha al-islam, 3 vols, Cairo 1933-36; Zuhr al-islam, 4 vols, Cairo 1945-55; Yawm al-islam, Cairo 1952. [*]
75. Mazyad, op. cit., pp. 45-8. [*]
76. Ahmad Amin, Hayati, Cairo, 1950 and 1952 (Revised Edition), translated by Issa J. Boullata, My Life, Leiden, 1978. [*]
77. According to Hermann, there exists a fifth volume of the Memoirs in manuscript form. It consists of 45 'articles' written by Kurd 'Ali between 1950-52. However, the strong insistence by some Damascene personalities and families to have certain passages deleted from the text has so far prevented its publication and also a reprint of the first four volumes. Hermann, op. cit., p. 201. [*]
© The author and Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Archived 29.3.99